Each issue of Border Crossings begins with an essay by editor Meeka Walsh. In this issue, Walsh follows Werner Herzog on his pilgrimage from Munich to Paris to visit his ailing friend, Lotte Eisner – a journey he undertook on foot, believing that the effort of his walking would sustain his friend's life.

INTERVIEWS

New York-based painter John Currin reveals his maverick romanticism, as he finds depth and soul in commercial advertising, and subverts pornographic images through beautiful and masterly rendering.

In a remarkable and moving interview with Robert Enright, renowned German filmmaker Wim Wenders remembers his friend, celebrated choreographer Pina Bausch, and reflects on his newly released film Pina, which began as collaboration with, and ended as elegy to its namesake, who died just before filming commenced.

"Beauty is not pretty," declares Stephen Andrews. The Toronto-based painter speaks to Border Crossings about aestheticizing the lamentable – turning tragic and terrifying realities into works of vibrant beauty.

ESSAY

John Kissick seeks to rediscover the magic amid the "splatter and daub" of Abstract Expressionism and assuage his painterly angst.

M J Thompson looks at lucidity, illumination and the reflection of reality in the photographic works featured in the 2011 Mois de la Photo à Montréal.

And Daniel Baird encounters the striking humanity in the work of Winnipeg-born photographer, Elaine Stocki.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

The Greg Curnoe Bike PROJECT by Paul Butler

BORDERVIEWS on the quiet excess of the "Barroco Nova" exhibition in London, Ontario; the freedom and variety in the new paintings of Dil Hildebrand; curator Denise Markonish's ambitious and expansive "Oh, Canada" project for MASS MoCA; and Ken Nicol's obsession with counting the commonplace.

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Border Crossings is a quarterly cultural magazine published in Winnipeg. Its subject is contemporary Canadian and international art and culture, which the magazine investigates through articles, columns, reviews, profiles, interviews and portfolios.